The invention relates to an apparatus for filling the magazine of a fastener drive, preferably directly from a sorting apparatus capable of feeding the fasteners directly into the magazine. The sorting apparatus includes a transfer mechanism for feeding the fasteners into the magazine of a driver such as an automatic driver for nails, screws and the like. The transfer mechanism normally includes a supply chute with inclined guide rails. The fastener discharge end of the chute is normally provided with a gate mechanism to prevent fasteners from falling out of the chute.
Sorting machines of this type are used for sorting nails, screws, pins, and the like, herein called collectively "fasteners". After the sorting these fasteners are made available in a supply chute in which they are arranged in parallel to one another and in a row or column. In a known sorting apparatus the supply chute is defined by two inclined guide rails in which, for example, nails are suspended by their heads to hang downwardly under the effect of gravity and to slide downwardly in the supply chute also under the effect of gravity until the first fastener or nail is held back at the discharge end of the supply chute by the gate mechanism arranged at said discharge end.
The nails loosely held in the supply chute are to be filled into a magazine, preferably automatically, which magazine is operatively connected to an automatic driver such as a nail driver or a screw driver mechanism. For this purpose the free end of the magazine is inserted between the guide rails of the supply chute to thereby open the gate mechanism and permit the nails to glide under the force of gravity into the magazine. Gravity also feeds the nails into the driver proper because the nails slide downwardly on the inclined side members of the driver magazine toward the driving ram.
Due to the gravity feed of the fasteners in the driver magazine, the driver may be used only in a predetermined position permitting the nails to slide downwardly toward the driver ram. This type of apparatus is not suitable for driving the fasteners in any direction or at any angle relative to the vertical. For driving devices of this type it is necessary to employ a spring biased slide pusher in the driver magazine. Such slide pushers are known as such. If the magazine is empty, the slide pusher is located immediately adjacent to the driving ram. The operator then must move the slide pusher back to the free end of the magazine where the slide pusher is arrested in a fixed position. However, if the operator inadvertently forgets pulling the slide pusher back into the arrested position it happens that fasteners are filled into the magazine while the slide pusher is still in its lowermost position in the magazine adjacent to the driving ram. Thus, fasteners are placed behind the slide pusher and the entire apparatus becomes inoperable until the fasteners are removed from the magazine, the slide pusher pulled back, and the fasteners filled back into the magazine.